The Times of Tuesday published, on the authority of the
North China Daily News, the details of a Treaty between China and Russia, which Li Hung Chang is to sign on his approaching visit to St. Petersburg. The Treaty includes an alliance, the cession of a route for the Siberian railway to Talienwan, a right on the part of Russia to march troops into Cores, and the employment of Russian officers to drill the Chinese army. The Treaty seems to have caused a sort of panic in Shanghai, but we see nothing in it so exceedingly dangerous. The clause authorising the employment of Russian officers will not make the Mandarins more willing to obey them, or less corrupt in providing for the troops, and it was certain that the Russian price for aiding China against Japan would be the cession of a railway terminus on the sea below the ice-bound latitude. That would have been our price too. It is folly to suppose that we can keep Russia in Asia from access to the water, nor, in our judgment, have we any moral right to do it. The way to defend our interests is to secure a good place for a naval arsenal in North China, not to be eternally wasting strength in efforts to " derail " the Russian locomotive.
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